Chateaubriand - the vicomte not his steak - left France in 1791 during the Revolution to spend a year in America. In his book, published in 1826, he described how the native Americans gathered, then boiled the maple sap into syrup, ending as small cones of sugar. François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) spent a month at a Native American camp and wrote what he learned from them in his book Voyage en Amerique. He used the term Savage which is rather jarring to modern readers. The image is from a Canadian 1883 weekly article "Sugar-Making Among the Indians in the North."
MAPLE SUGAR HARVEST.
"The juice of the maple was and still is collected by the Savages twice
a year. The first collection takes place about the end of February, March, or
April, according to the latitude of the country in which the sugar-maple grows.
The liquor collected after the slight night-frosts is converted into sugar by
being boiled over a strong fire. The quantity of sugar obtained by this process
differs according to the qualities of the tree. This sugar, light of digestion,
and of a greenish colour, has an agreeable and somewhat acid taste.
The second collection takes place when the sap of the tree has not
sufficient consistency to become sugar. This sap is condensed into a sort of
treacle or syrup, which, dissolved in spring water, furnishes a cooling
beverage during the heats of summer.
Great care is taken to preserve the maple-woods of the red and white
species. The most productive maples are those the bark of which looks black and
scabby. The Savages conceive that these appearances are occasioned by the black
red-headed woodpecker, which pierces such trees in which the sap is most
abundant. They consequently respect this woodpecker as an intelligent bird and
a good spirit.
These first two incisions are turned to the south: two similar ones are
made towards the north. These holes are afterwards bored, according as the tree
yields its sap, to the depth of two inches and a half.
Two wooden troughs are placed on the two sides of the tree facing the
north and south, and tubes of elder are introduced into the holes, to conduct
the sap into these troughs.
Every twenty-four hours the sap which has run off is removed; it is
carried into sheds covered with bark, and boiled in a pan of water, care being
taken at the same time to skim it. When it is reduced to one half by the action
of a clear fire, it is poured into another pan, in which it is again boiled
till it has acquired the consistence of a syrup. Being then taken from the
fire, it is allowed to stand for twelve hours. At the expiration of that time
it is emptied into a third pan; but care must be taken not to shake the
sediment deposited at the bottom of the liquor.
The third pan is in its turn set upon charcoal half-burned and without
flame. A little fat is thrown into this syrup to prevent its boiling over. When
it begins to be ropy, it must be poured into a fourth and last wooden vessel,
called the cooler. A strong female keeps stirring it round without stopping,
with a cedar stick, till it acquires the grain of sugar. She afterwards runs it
off into bark moulds, which give to the coagulated fluid the shape of small
conical loaves: the operation is then finished.
In making molasses only the process ends with the second boiling.
The maple juice keeps running for a fortnight, and this fortnight is a
continued festival. Every morning the maple wood, usually irrigated by a stream
of water, is visited. Groups of Indians of both sexes are dispersed at the foot
of the trees; the young people dance or play at different games; the children
bathe under the inspection of the Sachems."
Travels in America and Italy, Volume 1
London: 1828 by François-René vicomte de Chateaubriand
Image: "Sugar-Making Among
the Indians in the North." Canadian
Illustrated News. May 12, 1883
©2018 Patricia Bixler Reber
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